Fairy tales go under knife of censorship

Recent puritanical changes to the ending of an ancient and popular
Vietnamese folk story, Tam and Cam, in a 10th grade text book has
stirred much controversy.

In the original version compared to the
West's Cinderella, Tam, a beautiful young girl, takes revenge against
her evil stepsister Cam and her stepmother for all the suffering they
caused to her when she married a king. The story goes that Tam was
re-incarnated five times after being murdered by the jealous pair. She
first came back as a bird, then as a tree, then as a weaver's loom, then
a fig - and then finally, she was re-incarnated as herself, the Queen.

When
Tam re-appeared for the final time - and looking more beautiful than
ever - Cam was overcome with jealousy and hatred. She asked her sister
the secret of her incredible beauty and was told to take a bath in
boiling water.

She was so greedy for the beauty and adoration
that Tam enjoyed, she did as she was advised - and took the scalding
bath. When the stepsister finished shrieking and fell lifeless, Tam cut
her body up and used it to make sauce. She sent a jar to her wicked
stepmother, who ate it and died of shock after finding the sauce was
made from her daughter's flesh.

The cannibalism element has been
deleted from the newly amended version of the text book as the compilers
claim it was too brutal for today's moralities.

Young mother Le
Minh Thuy from Hanoi is among those who support the change. She always
made up a more humanitarian ending when she read the tale to her young
daughter. "I didn't want a young mind to be affected by cruelty," she
said.

Primary school teacher Hoang Hoai Nhon recalled how hard it
was to teach Tam and Cam to her students before the story was taken out
from primary school classes and added to the high-school curriculum.
"Tam represented the good as we taught our students," she said, "but in
the end she was as brutal as the evil sister. How can we say that she
was still good?"

While the modified version is supported by some,
many others are appalled that people in the 21st century take it on
themselves to censor a story that is 2,000 years old.

"The
compilers don't understand the nature of folk tales. The modified
version does not respect Vietnamese history," said Folk Literature
lecturer Nguyen Hung Vi from Hanoi National University of Social
Sciences.

The original ending was not over the top, he said, when
one thought of "how hell is described in Biblical or Buddhist texts,
both of which aim to make people live better lives".

The good and
evil Vietnamese stepsisters are similar to folk stories in Asian and
Western literature. The giant in Jack and the Beanstalk, for instance,
always said: "Fee, fi, fo, fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman, be
he alive or be he dead, I'll grind his bones to make my bread."

Associate
professor of Literature Tran Nho Thin also strongly opposes the
modifications because they tamper with the truth – the mindset of our
ancestors in an early mists of time when the structure of society was
still forming.

But Vietnam's Cinderella folk tale is not the only
one being sent to the cleaners. Several other of Vietnam's best-known
literature pieces, including short stories Chi Pheo by Nam Cao or Vo
Nhat (Wife Randomly Found) by Kim Lan are now being taught to high
school students with some of the best parts removed because they involve
sex.

Associate professor Thin said the truncated versions were
lame representations of famous Vietnamese literature. According to him,
renowned novelist Nam Cao spent one sixth of Chi Pheo, for instance,
describing how the male and female characters meet each other by a river
under a banana tree, but in the new version, compilers have removed
almost all of this fearing it might affect teenagers' mental outlook.

Thin
said it turns a story of humanitarianism into a story only against
feudal oppression. "That's a distortion," he said, adding that high
school students are mature enough to be taught about sex.

Amid
the controversial and on-going reform of text books, literature experts
accuse compilers of doing their job without adequate research or
knowledge. "Where are they (compilers) based to decide this or that will
badly affect students' psychology?" said Vi.

Vietnam's Ministry
of Education and Training has done no research on school psychology for
different ages for years, and until it does, all modifications and even
comments must be considered arbitrary.

This raises questions
about the teaching methods now being applied at Vietnamese schools.
Instead of insisting that Tam is so nice, let students discuss and argue
for themselves. At the end of the day, the changing the most famous
folk tale may indicate problems within the whole education system./.